The number of homes and businesses using personal computers has increased substantially in recent years, and along with this increase has come an explosion in the use of the Internet, and particularly the World-Wide Web ("the Web"). The Web is a collection of formatted hypertext pages located on numerous computers around the world that are logically connected by the Internet. Although "the Web" has in the past been a source of primarily scientific and technical information, it is now a valuable resource for information relating to almost any subject, including business, entertainment, travel, and education, to name just a few. Advances in network technology, and especially in software such as "Web browsers" (software applications which provide a user interface to the Web), have made the Web accessible to a large segment of the population. However, despite the growth in the development and use of the Web, many people are still unable to take advantage of this important resource.
Access to the Web has been limited to people who have access to a personal computer. Yet some people cannot afford the cost of even a relatively inexpensive personal computer, while others are unable or unwilling to learn the basic computer skills that are required to access the Web. Furthermore, Web browsers in the prior art generally do not provide the degree of user-friendliness desired by some people who lack computer experience, and many computer novices do not have the patience to learn how to use the software. Some people, for example, dislike an interface which requires them to identify hypertext objects and use the point-and-click technique to browse through Web pages.
Most people, however, feel quite comfortable using a remote control to operate a television set. Therefore, it would be desirable to allow a person to access the World-Wide Web without the use of a personal computer. In particular, it would be desirable for a person to be able to access and navigate through Web pages using an ordinary television set and a remote control. It would further be desirable to have a user interface by which a person can use a remote control to navigate between hypertext objects on a Web page with minimal effort or thought, so that a person feels more as if he or she is simply changing television channels rather than utilizing a complex computer network.
In addition to deficiencies in user interfaces, another problem commonly associated with Web browsing is communications latency. People commonly experience long, frustrating delays when browsing the Web. There are many possible causes for latency, such as heavy communications traffic on the Internet, slow response of remote servers, or the need to download very large files, as in the case of many images or audio files. Therefore, what is needed is a means for reducing such latency to eliminate some of the frustration which typically has been associated with Web browsing.
Another problem encountered by computer users in general is that software applications tend to become outdated quickly. Accordingly, software suppliers periodically produce upgrades, which are often distributed in the same way that the original software was distributed, such as on magnetic or optical disks or other similar storage devices. However, the distribution of software upgrades on storage media such as these has disadvantages. For example, it is inconvenient and sometimes annoying for the user to have to repeatedly install software upgrades, which can be a time-consuming process. Further, a user may not be aware that an upgrade is available or necessary, or he may forget to obtain or install the upgrade. The failure to install an upgrade or a delay in installing an upgrade can be detrimental, since the upgrade may add valuable new features to the software or remedy a bug (error) in the software. Therefore, what is needed is a technique for allowing a software upgrade to be automatically provided over a network in a manner which requires little or no effort on the part of the user.
A further problem encountered in computer networks is initializing and maintaining the accuracy of configuration information at the user sites. For example, a user's computer may store information related to local telephone access numbers, modem settings, and a user identifier and password. This configuration information must be initialized and maintained in the event that a user is accessing the system for the first time, or in the event that the user's session was interrupted by a power failure or some other unexpected interruption of service. Therefore, what is needed is a technique for initializing and maintaining user data automatically over a network in a manner which requires little or no effort on the part of the user.